The state-of-the-art cleanrooms at the £61m National Graphene Institute (NGI) – the world’s largest single use graphene cleanrooms – will be used by Royce 2D Materials researchers. [1]

The Institute has been designed using pioneering techniques to incorporate ultra-high specification equipment, some of which has been tailored specifically for graphene and 2D materials research. It houses 1,500 square metres of class 100 and class 1000 cleanrooms – the largest academic space of its kind in the world dedicated to graphene research – as well as laser, optical, metrology and chemical labs and equipment. [2]

Prevac and Henniker Scientific are installing a custom UHV system to perform a wide range of tasks on fabrication and characterisation of atomically thin layers of 2D materials. The suite comprised of several interconnected UHV chambers which will allow thin film deposition and ion milling, sample preparation and also transfer between all chambers and a variable temperature STM/AFM under ulttra-high vacuum conditions via a linear transfer tunnel.A special transferring trolley indexes up to 15 sample holders. The movement of samples throughout the system is achieved via linear magnetic drives. All motion elements: rotary feedthroughs, drive belt with magnets, motors etc. are outside the vacuum in order to guarantee the best vacuum performance and ease of service.

Receipt of the system has taken place and installation is due to be completed by the end of July 2018. Here you can see Dr. Thomas Bointon lending a hand (shoulder!) with one of the linear transfer tunnel modules (i)

(i) Delivery of the system at the NGI Manchester University this week (image credit Henniker Scientific Ltd)